


romanticize a quiet life

by lettertotheworld



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, Feelings, Fluff, Getting Together, Relationship Stuff, but that really doesn't even matter, idk it's soft and simple!!, post e110
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:13:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26615764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lettertotheworld/pseuds/lettertotheworld
Summary: “So…the whole “casually make myself available” thing worked,” Beau says, and Yasha can’t stop the laugh that leaves her. “Instead of, you know, throwing myself at you.”“You mean you haven’t been throwing yourself at me?” she ribs, and Beau raises an eyebrow.“I mean…I can,” she offers, and Yasha’s skin runs hot again, burning.or, they might have some things they need to talk about
Relationships: Beauregard Lionett/Yasha
Comments: 37
Kudos: 327





	romanticize a quiet life

**Author's Note:**

> welcome to the manifestation station!!   
> also yasha still has veth's flask in this, just ignore it. it was convenient.

“Why can’t you let this go?” Fjord asks with annoyance in his tone. “It was, like, ten minutes ago, you’re being ridiculous.”

“Uh, I’m being _completely rational_ ,” Beau argues. “They fucking cheated.”

Fjord sighs and leans back in his chair, sets his ale down on the table in front of them.

“They didn’t cheat, you just lost. You had a long day at the library, and there’s nothing wrong with losing.”

Beau feels her face pull into something disgusted, horrified by the mere concept of what he’s saying.

“Who even are you?”

He groans and scrubs his hands over his face, then suddenly brightens, looks as though he’s realized something. Beau’s not sure she likes this expression. She’s seen it before, and trouble follows. Not the good kind of trouble, but the kind that is usually at her expense.

“You know, I don’t think Yasha was even _watching_ the arm-wrestling contest. Maybe you should…fill her in on what she missed?”

“Seriously,” she says dryly. “I’m pretty sure the whole tavern just saw it.”

But he’s not listening, is already turning to the table diagonal from them where Yasha is sitting with Caduceus and Jester. He calls for Yasha, and Beau feels her face growing hot as Yasha glances over.

She’s not avoiding Yasha, but she feels like she’s the one always pushing and pressing, and she knows when to stop, knows when to shut up and wait.

“Beau says she’d like to buy you a drink,” Fjord tells Yasha.

Fuck.

It takes almost all of her willpower these days not to break down and spill her heart whenever she’s around Yasha. Not to mention, she’s already had two drinks.

Yeah, no, she can’t do this.

She whips her head back to Fjord and glares at him.

“Dude, fuck you,” she hisses as Yasha comes over to their table.

“I’m just going to excuse myself,” he says, standing from his chair and offering it to Yasha before leaving them alone.

“What’s wrong?” Yasha asks her, and she won’t sit down, not until Beau tells her that she wants her to, and that’s their _entire problem_.

“Uh, nothing. Fjord’s damn good at playing people.”

Yasha looks confused, upset even, as a frown settles onto her face.

“Should I…do you want me to leave?”

“No!” Beau says quickly, shaking her head. “No, that’s not what I meant, I was…”

“Because it’s okay if you didn’t actually want to buy me a drink, I just thought…”

“I do, I do.” Beau collapses her head into her hands. “Ah, shit, okay, yeah.” She lifts a hand and holds two fingers up to the barkeep who nods once.

Beau notices Yasha staring at her fingers, even as she lowers them, and her face is red hot. She knows it, can feel it all the way to her scalp. She crosses her arms to refocus Yasha’s attention, and it works; she meets Beau’s gaze and flushes before she glances down at the table, finally takes Fjord’s old seat.

“Um, so…I saw you…arm wrestling that Half-Orc,” Yasha starts, and Beau rolls her eyes.

“Oh, really?” she huffs, because _fucking Fjord_. “You mean you saw me _lose_?”

“Well,” Yasha says with a shrug, “they cheated, so…”

Beau’s eyes snap back to Yasha’s, and Yasha is looking at her with a kind smile, is looking at her like she understands her better than Beau understands herself, and Beau’s heart leaps, and she’s a little too far gone.

When the barkeep brings their wine, Beau takes a sip, tries anything she can to distract herself, but the wine is _shit_ , and she nearly spits it back out. She doesn’t, because Yasha is sitting directly across from her, and that would be extremely embarrassing. Except, Yasha is grimacing, too, as she puts her drink down.

“Oh,” Yasha says, looks at Beau with a soured look on her face and humor in her eyes. “That is terrible.”

Beau feels some of the tension loosen in her body and she laughs, content and unbidden. And it’s hard, not knowing how Yasha feels, not knowing if she wants…something different. She likes to be agile, careful, in anything she does that isn’t combat. She hates not knowing things. She hates having to rely on assumptions because if that’s the case, she will probably always end up doing the wrong thing.

But she and Yasha will have these moments where they can talk like there’s not this giant, unconfessed _thing_ hovering over them, and she appreciates that, cherishes it. There is so much more between them than unspoken feelings, and Beau doesn’t know if she’s in love, but she does know that if she is, then she genuinely _likes_ the person she’s in love with.

“I mean, we can leave?” she suggests. “There are other places with less shitty alcohol.”

Yasha glances around them before she untucks a flask from her belt, and Beau feels herself nearly beaming at the sight of Veth’s bottomless whiskey.

“Hey, you still have that,” she says, fucking _delighted_.

“Don’t tell,” Yasha says with a small grin, “but I am probably never giving it back.”

It’s too complicated to sneak a drink in here, so Beau gestures for the door, and Yasha pushes her chair back and stands. Beau tosses a handful of gold onto the table for a bottle of “fine” wine that they hardly touched and follows Yasha outside.

They settle onto a wooden bench not too far away from the tavern, and Yasha takes the first sip before she passes it to Beau. She shakes her head after she takes a swig, is personally thrilled that Fjord’s “plan” didn’t work. Mostly because fuck him, but also because this feels much more comfortable, much more their speed. Still, Fjord made a promise to Yasha on her behalf, and she is a little apologetic that it didn’t happen that way, that it never just _happens_ that way for them.

“I really did want to buy you a drink,” she says after a moment of drinking and people-watching.

“You did,” Yasha argues, takes the flask back when Beau offers it. “But it was really gross, and this is not.”

She holds the flask up before she takes another sip, and Beau watches a small drop of whiskey make its way down Yasha’s chin. Yasha must not notice, because she doesn’t move to wipe it away. So, for whatever horrible idea of a reason, Beau decides she’ll do it for her.

She doesn’t really think before she reaches out, and suddenly her thumb is running over the bit of whiskey, clearing it from Yasha’s chin. She roves over her tattoo, and Yasha is watching her with eyes that Beau can’t read, but she can’t _stop_ , is more intoxicated from Yasha than she is the drinks. She moves just slightly, just so her thumb grazes Yasha’s mouth, and there’s a fire in Beau’s stomach as she traces over Yasha’s bottom lip that also shines with whiskey, and Beau wishes it were shining with something else, wishes desperately—

A group of people loudly clamber out of the tavern, slamming the door shut behind them, and it startles Beau back to reality, fills her with a new fire, and she wants to go punch them all in the face for wrecking their fucking moment. Because that’s what this was. It was a _moment_. She can tell by the way Yasha is still staring at her, soft eyes and parted lips, and Beau thinks she may have underestimated how it would feel to be on the receiving end of Yasha’s desire.

“Uh, we should go back to…you know, they’re probably, like, wondering,” she tries clumsily, rubbing the back of her neck in frustration, because she thinks she needs to sit on this for a while, thinks she’s already done enough damage by pushing Yasha _again_ , and _damn_ _it_ , she’s so bad at this.

She rises to her feet, hold her hand out and tries to smile, and Yasha takes it, lets Beau help her up even though she definitely doesn’t need it.

Yasha doesn’t say anything, but she doesn’t let go of Beau’s hand the whole walk back to the inn.

She spends so long looking at the door across the hall from her that she thinks she’s starting to memorize the grain of the wood. It was never this complicated before. She’s relearning a lot, finding her footing, and she’s clumsy right now, but Beau is giving her this. Beau is waiting, always waiting for her, even in the beginning. Even now.

She has no idea how to ever explain that sometimes she just sits and watches Beau’s door, imagines being on the other side of it, imagines being in her bed. She’s had moments where she comes close to knocking, moments where she could easily, quietly, slip inside Beau’s room, slide into bed with her under the sheets and the moonlight and just sleep. She always wonders what Beau would do when she wakes the following morning to find Yasha taking up space next to her, and her face suddenly feels hot, warmth spreading through her body.

Yasha tips her head back so she’s looking up at the night sky, and she’ll get water in her ears, but that’s okay. She’s half-floating in a river, feet brushing the sediment in the shallow parts, and it’s a beautiful night. Except for the ache in her chest. Except for the knots in her stomach.

But somehow it is easier this way, naked and free and wading. It’s easier with their clothes off, and Yasha has thought about it, but the timing is wrong, and this is never how she’s imagined it. Not with them already naked in a body of water on the outskirts of Zadash before they journey into the unknown. It’s not what she wants for them. But she does _want_.

Beau is a decent distance away from her, a safe distance, and Yasha lifts her head, brings her hair over one shoulder and glances across to see Beau drifting closer, but seemingly not on purpose. She’s being carried, and she looks beautiful like this, giving herself over to the current. Yasha lets her drift all the way up to her, and Beau is facing away from her on her back, so she doesn’t see when she gently bumps into an unmoving Yasha, when Yasha reaches out and takes Beau’s wrist to keep her from being any further away from her. Because suddenly, the thought of that is unbearable.

“Sorry,” Beau says, but she’s smiling like she doesn’t really mean it. “I had my eyes closed.”

The water reaches their shoulders, but it doesn’t have to. They could stand, could swim closer to the riverbank. They could get out of the water completely. But it’s a choice they’re making, and recently, Yasha has been taking the lead while Beau follows, and this is comfortable for her right now. So, she stays with her body submerged, still grasping Beau’s wrist underwater, and Beau is watching her, ghost of a smile playing at her lips, and Yasha definitely notices because how can she not stare at Beau’s mouth when they’re this close?

“You’re warm,” Yasha says quietly, and she feels herself blush as Beau’s brows raise, but it’s all she could think to say, and there can be so much wrapped up in two words. “Your skin…”

“I…yeah, I mean,” Beau says with a shrug, and the water around her moves with the action, “I guess I’ve…kind of always been that way?”

Yasha is smiling now, the corners of her lips quirking.

“It’s all of the fire inside you,” she says, and she watches as Beau flushes, turns into the horribly flustered version of herself that Yasha loves. She’s pliable like this; pliable like Yasha’s heart when she’s around her.

“Fire,” Beau echoes, tries to laugh. “Yeah, that’s—probably.”

“Thank you,” Yasha says suddenly, feels a wave of gratitude wash over her for the fact that she gets to be here, that she gets to be alone with Beau. Close to Beau, nervous and thrilled and alive. “For asking me to come with you tonight. This is very nice.”

“Sure,” Beau says, and her small grin is back. “Figured we could both use some time to relax. I’m glad you said yes.”

“Me, too.” Yasha inhales, lets her breath out slowly as she gestures between the two of them. “I’ve wanted this for a long time.”

Beau is quiet as she watches her, studies her face, and Yasha could melt under the intensity.

“How long?” Beau wonders.

But Yasha can only shrug. She’s not sure, and it wouldn’t matter anyway. They’re here now, and that has to be enough. Because if she starts diving into the hows and whens and wheres, then that sickly, prickling sensation will rise within her, and she will want to stop. Will want to obey the guilt and turn back.

She lets her hand travel from Beau’s wrist to her fingers, not quite locking them with her own, but toying with them like she might.

“I should apologize, I think,” she says, and Beau looks taken aback, disagreeable, but Yasha is right. She knows she is right. “I caused you a lot of pain.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I did a lot of things.”

“You mean…” Beau’s shoulders lift, “taking off in the middle of the night on random quests to, like, redeem yourself in the eyes of god and get your wings back, or whatever. Or, almost killing me. Yeah, no, that’s…no big deal. Seriously, don’t even worry about it.”

“Beau,” Yasha argues. “Sometimes you treat me like I’m going to melt away, but I’m not. I’m trying to show you that I’m here.”

“Yeah, I know.” Beau’s smile is cocked endearingly. “I see you.”

“I’m trying to do the right things. And to keep moving forward. I want…” Yasha shakes her head, loses her nerve. “I don’t know.”

“Well, then, you should stop punishing yourself. You keep talking about making up for lost time. You don’t have anything to make up for, okay? I mean, it’s not like you can come rushing over to use your, like, _magic angel hands_ on me every time I get a little scratch.”

“I don’t think expecting me to be okay with you getting hurt is the same thing as forgiving myself.”

Because if it were her—if she were Beau—then she thinks her feelings would be a little tangled. A grieving, mind-controlled widow who drove a sword into her chest and nearly killed her. A once corrupt Aasimar finding her wings again who broke her fall with her arms and flew her around an island. A rage-filled barbarian who places gentle, healing hands on her post-battle. She has recklessly been so many things to Beau, has peeled back so many layers of herself.

She can’t lose another person, and she definitely can’t let it be Beau.

But Beau’s grin pulls to one side and the fingers that Yasha still has in her grasp wrap around her hand, bring it to rest just at her torso, close to her abdomen, and Yasha feels jagged scar tissue at her fingertips, feels her own stomach drop at the contact.

“If I have to let go of my abandonment shit, then you have to let go of this,” Beau tells her, squeezes Yasha’s hand gently as if she’s nervous. Ridiculous; Yasha has had her hands on Beau plenty of times before and Beau doesn’t get nervous. Unless she does.

Yasha tries to steel herself, tries to act like this simple touch isn’t breaking her down, but Beau is still just smiling at her, and it makes her own lips quirk as she ducks her head.

“Have you thought that…maybe I’m not making up for anything?” she asks gently. “And that maybe I just don’t want you to die?”

“Uh, not really,” Beau says, exhales a weak laugh. “I mean, at least not like that. I didn’t even…I haven’t thought about it, I guess. I’ve tried not to. I don’t know, it’s—I didn’t know if it was real, so.”

“It’s real,” Yasha promises, runs her fingers over the scar that her sword made. That she made.

“So…the whole “casually make myself available” thing worked,” Beau says, and Yasha can’t stop the laugh that leaves her. “Instead of, you know, throwing myself at you.”

“You mean you haven’t been throwing yourself at me?” she ribs, and Beau raises an eyebrow.

“I mean…I _can_ ,” she offers, and Yasha’s skin runs hot again, burning.

“Yeah,” Yasha tells her with a nod, and her voice has gone low, rough, without her permission. “Yeah, I think just…maybe not right now.”

Beau smiles, releases Yasha’s hand and kicks off in the water, backstroking away from her. All the air in Yasha’s lungs leaves her, and her whole body sags, loss of proximity causing her to deflate.

“That’s your call,” she tells Yasha as she swims back into her own space. “You know that.”

Beau ducks her head underwater then resurfaces, pushes her wet hair back. She drifts over to the shallow until she can stand, and Yasha watches the shape of her, half sharp edges and half softer curves, as Beau makes her way back to the grass where they’ve left their clothes. She swallows thickly, thinks she’s probably going to end up staring at Beau’s door tonight.

Caduceus found a meadow and told her about it for her book, gave her directions for the short walk. She’s fallen back into a field of wildflowers with a storm brewing overhead, and it’s her favorite kind of day. They’ll leave again soon, for areas she’s never been and has no experience with, and nothing excites her more than traveling. It makes her feel like a child going to a new shop with change in her pocket.

“Hey,” Beau’s voice comes through over the distant, roiling thunder, would have startled her if she weren’t so completely at peace. “Cad said you’d be here. You’re not doing, like, Stormlord shit, right? Because I can…”

So, there is, apparently, one thing that excites her more.

Yasha leans up on her elbows, watches Beau jut her thumb out and gesture over her shoulder.

“No, stay,” she says—begs—and Beau grins and settles down into the tall grass beside her. She has a fistful of something, and Yasha nods at it. “What is that?”

“Oh.” Beau’s laugh is light, unbidden. “Raspberries. I didn’t know how long I’d be gone, so.”

“I can’t believe I didn’t think of that,” Yasha says, lips quirked, and Beau shrugs lamely, watches her with warm eyes and a small smile.

“I mean, I’ll share,” Beau offers, extends her hand out.

Yasha takes one, presses it gently between her fingers and feels it give slightly before she pops it into her mouth.

It’s perfect now, having Beau here, and it’s hard not to imagine a world where this is all they do. Where they don’t have monsters to fight and wars to stop. She doesn’t think she’d like it, doesn’t think it’d feel very much like their world since roaming is what they know best, but it’s sort of nice to think about. Nice to dream about.

“I have to tell you something,” she says after a beat, and Beau lifts an eyebrow. “I was…I think I was hoping you would find me here.”

Beau stares at her for a moment before she huffs out a breath of laughter.

“Uh…why didn’t you just ask me to come with you?”

“I wanted it to be your choice.”

“You’re always my choice,” Beau says, and it must come out quicker than she meant to, must’ve slipped out before her lips could hold it in, because she’s averting her gaze to the sky with a light tinge of blush at her cheeks. “Plus, I can’t eat all these raspberries by myself.”

A move that only Beau would make, the tactic she uses where vulnerability is weakness and everything is a joke and she’s fazed by nothing, etcetera, etcetera. It doesn’t work on Yasha, has never worked on Yasha, and she sits up, hopes the movement will draw Beau’s attention back to her. It does, and she reaches for Beau’s hand in the grass—the one free of fruit—to cover it with her own.

“I never thought I would feel anything like this again,” she says quietly, glances down to where their hands are touching and feels a rush in her chest.

“Like…what?” Beau asks carefully.

“I don’t think it’s something I can explain,” she says with a shrug, reaching over to carefully pick a flower from her right and even more carefully tuck it into Beau’s hair, admiring the sight. Blue, to match the eyes that bore into her own. “You make me feel very lucky.”

“ _Me_?” Beau rasps in disbelief, fumbles for words, and Yasha feels giddy, light, and she lets the feeling in the pit of her stomach carry her as she gently pushes against Beau’s shoulders, pushes her down to crush the wildflowers beneath her back and hovers above her.

“Yes,” she promises, can’t stop the smile at her lips. “You.”

Beau dissolves into an incredulous laugh, like she can’t fathom that Yasha would ever feel something soft for her. Like Yasha is only allowed to hold enough love in her heart for one person, despite that person being gone. Despite that person being lost to her. She’s ready to make herself available to someone who is _here_ , someone she very deeply cares for.

“I’m gonna fuck this up.”

“No, you’re not, Beau,” Yasha tells her. “I’m here for anything you need. Because I think I need it, too.”

“Yeah…yeah,” Beau says distantly, then more seriously, “Uh, I do have some bad news, though?”

Yasha watches with a frown as Beau holds her hand up and opens it to find the raspberries all flattened and soft. Her head dips with laughter as she pushes Beau’s hand away, and a smile lights up Beau’s face in response.

“You crushed our snack,” she says, and Beau’s eyes widen a bit in offense. “We’re going to starve.”

“Well, you, like, got all…on top of me,” Beau argues indignantly.

“Oh, I can be…not on top of you, if you want,” Yasha offers teasingly, and when she goes to move, she feels a solid arm hook around her waist, holding her down.

“Or we could just stay here a little longer before we have to go back.”

Yasha smiles fondly, settles her head on Beau’s chest, and she believes she will finally have her answer to what it feels like to be on the other side of the door.

**Author's Note:**

> there was originally a kiss in here but it felt. wrong?? so i took it out?? ahh im new here and they have me by the throat  
> im @bourbonstdyke on twitter and tumblr :~)


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